


Duty

by MageOfAcademia



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Grief, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-28 21:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MageOfAcademia/pseuds/MageOfAcademia
Summary: Duty meant that a Queenscove would always serve the Crown as a knight.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Duty

Duty meant standing stiffly in a sea of black cloth for first one funeral and then a second. 

Duty meant letting Jessamine tuck her small form into his side, crying silently into his cloak. She was only ten, and a girl, and no one would deny her need to cry. 

Duty meant constraining his grief to such outward expressions as befit a man — as befit a ducal heir. Remaining somber, but dignified. Performing grief the right way, not punching a wall until his knuckles throbbed and bled, or hiding in his rooms and refusing to come out. Acknowledging the King and Queen and their genuine sorrow for his family’s loss, a great loss to the Crown as well. Pretending to care about politics enough to endure the polite condolences from other nobles, some of whom actually cared and some of whom did not. 

Duty meant supporting his mother, who still seemed frozen somewhere in the realm of disbelief, and his father, who had grey hairs where there had been none only weeks ago. The realm needed its chief healer in these times of war. His mother could retreat to the family’s quarters, but his father could not afford to do so. If he did, then other men, and other men’s sons, would die. 

Duty meant standing on the alure of the palace wall, staring out into the distance, wondering if Graeme and Cathal had been scared going into battle, if they had gotten to see each other and act like ordinary brothers one last time before it happened, if they’d killed the men who killed them. Knowing they went into battle to protect Tortall. Knowing they did it all because in their minds, serving the Crown was the greatest thing a man could do. And even if they had been afraid, they would have done it anyway. Duty meant their deaths, a risk they had knowingly taken.

Duty meant paperwork and conversations with his father and with the King, conversations acknowledging that he was now heir to the dukedom. 

Duty meant crying silently, angrily, in his room after those conversations. Wanting to just be a healer, and a good one at that, and not a duke. 

Duty meant deciding that any acts of desperation in his grief would not help. Refusing to eat, drinking himself into a stupor, charging into a stupid fight — none of these things would bring them back. Heroes in books were prone to drastic acts in the name of grief. He was melodramatic at best, perhaps, but not a hero in a novel or an epic poem. Duty had to move him, not passion. Passion would just hurt.

Duty meant washing his face and changing into yet another clean black tunic. Collecting the stack of books from his desk. Presenting himself to his father to state that he had rethought his choice to become a healer, that there was something else he needed to do instead. 

Duty meant watching his father sadly nod, knowing that both of them knew that had none of this happened, he would have followed in his father’s footsteps, and probably done a good job of it, too. 

Duty meant standing before Lord Wyldon of Cavall, the pages’ training master, at the ripe old age of fifteen years, and declaring that despite his age and several years of training to become a healer, Nealan of Queenscove would become a page, then a squire, and then hopefully a knight. 

Duty meant tolerating Lord Wyldon, and tolerating page training, and doing a million things that he would rather not be doing, in the name of a knighthood he never wanted for himself, but that his brothers valued above all other duties. 

Duty meant that a Queenscove would always serve the Crown as a knight.

Duty meant that his brothers’ deaths would not be in vain.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers, 
> 
> It can’t have been an easy decision for Neal, choosing to become a knight in the wake of his brother’s deaths. 
> 
> Having a sense of duty probably helped give him a framework for how to act, but that doesn’t mean it made it any easier.


End file.
